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A
NEW WAY OF SEEING
For
those who have an
interest in learning
about life in a past
era,
historic houses are a fine
place to start. Historic
houses that go beyond
the usual static room settings
and offer a sense
of place are memorable and
forge a connection to the
past for their visitors. It
is this connection, whether
cognitive, physical or emotional,
that encourages future learning.
What a wonderful
role for an historic house!
 In creating a sense
of place, accuracy
in information is an important
initial step. Visitors of
today often ask to know what
is “real” as
though that will
give them a connection.
Research assures
the accuracy of the facts.
Current research at Gore Place
involves archaeologists, preservation
architects, scholars and staff
studying the architecture,
the landscape, letters, books,
journals, furnishings and
paintings of the period. Paint
analysis provides information
on paint colors. But to provide
a sense of place, the historic
interpretation must be much
more than accuracy in furnishings
and facts. It is
easy to relate a list of facts.
It is hard to bring that list
of facts to life. It may even
require a new way of seeing
the old.
Gore
Place has turned
to individuals from Perkins
School for the Blind, Carroll
Center for the Blind
and Bay State Council of the
Blind for assistance in reimagining
the delivery of interpretive
information to give
visitors an emotional connection
at Gore Place. While not altering
any of the period
room settings, this team project
will add multisensory
features such as touchable
objects, sounds and scents
to each room on the mansion
tour. Every visitor brings
different abilities and experiences
to a tour. Sight
impaired individuals have
a particularly heightened
awareness of their surroundings.
By listening to our sight
impaired team members, our
staff was encouraged to “see” things
differently.
Kim
Charlson, Director
of the Perkins Braille and
Talking Book Library at Perkins
School for the Blind, says, “Working
with staff from Gore
Place to design a
truly meaningful
multi-sensory tactile tour
of the Gore House, we quickly
learned that touch, sound
and smell can bring the day
to day activities in a 19th
century home to life for all
guests.”
Models
and replicas of specific
household items such as the
metamorphic library
chair and the various
fillings for mattresses will
be available for visitors
to touch. Sound recordings
of household equipment or
activities such as water dripping
in Gore’s
shower or the family and
guests playing billiards
will be placed appropriately.
Scents common to
an early 19th century household
will be added where foods
or medicinal substances would
have been used. Tallow, tobacco,
and camphor are examples.
The multisensory tour features
should be in place
by fall 2013.
Adding
such multisensory
features will augment the
furnishings and personal items
already included in the room
settings. The smallest details
can make a difference to the
visitor’s
sense of place. Understanding
how the occupants lived
in the home is also
important. Guides are trained
to focus on stories rather
than objects and to relate
anecdotes about the family
and what was going on socially
and politically in a conversational
rather than a lecture
style. Allowing guests to
move through the rooms without
stanchions or barriers is
important for the sense of
place. Gore Place uses carpet
runners to guide foot traffic.
Themed tours can
also be designed
to provide a sense
of place. At Gore
Place, the thematic tour entitled “Living
in the Dark” is always
given in the evening
so that visitors can experience
what it was like living before
electricity. The
driveway has lanterns with
candles and a staff member,
dressed as a maid, tends real
candles in one room. Electric
candles are used throughout
the rest of the house. Another
thematic tour “What
the Butler Said” uses
the words of Robert Roberts,
Gore’s
butler, from his
book The House Servant’s
Directory to describe the
activities in the house from
the servant’s
point of view. Guides,
dressed as servants,
give the tour as though the
Gores are expecting guests
for dinner.
None of these techniques
are particularly
costly. All contribute
to a sense of place.
They simply require
a new way of seeing
old houses through
a more connected lens. This
project is a fine example
of the innovative
and progressive programs that
are developed by Gore Place
to teach an appreciation of
early 19th century New
England. What a wonderful
role for Gore Place!
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WATCH
YOUR BACK! EXHIBIT
 Functional
and fancy, plain
and painted, Gore Place
has a fine collection of
interesting 18th and early
19th c. chairs. Our current
seasonal exhibit, “The
Best Seat in the
House”,
displays 8 unusual
examples in the
Great Hall and then highlights
more than a dozen other
important chairs throughout
the furnished rooms of the
mansion. In the Great Hall
are two metamorphic chairs;
a beautiful painted “elastic” bentwood
chair; a “slipper” chair;
a comb-back Windsor
chair; an early invalid “Bath
chair”, the forerunner
to our modern wheelchairs;
and, an elegant serpentine
backed Hepplewhite
style chair. The
exhibit is in place
through April 15th. Special
thanks to Gore Place member
Carolyn Meek, Instructor at
Boston Architectural College,
for her knowledge and encouragement
in the development
of this exhibit!
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BEHIND
THE SCENE
The restoration of
the two carriages owned by
Gore Place continues under
the steady hands of Ted and
Walter Eayrs of Blackburn
Conservation. Christopher
Gore’s Cheltenham Pony
Phaeton is particularly
interesting. The documented
provenance and surviving original
paint package make this among
the rarest of carriages of
this type. Ted will speak
at the Gore Place Annual Meeting
about this project.
The
restoration of the
1793 Gore carriage house continues.
Tuttle Construction,
Preservation Specialists
of Greenwich, NY, have installed
a new wood shingle
roof. Based on historic evidence,
our architect Jeff Baker of
Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker
Architects of Albany, NY elected
to use a historic roof detail
called “swept” valleys
and hips. This is
a construction not
generally used in the last
100 years.
The City of Waltham
has approved the
construction of a
24’ wide
curb cut and entrance
on Gore Street. This
will allow for improved traffic
flow during Sheepshearing.
More
than 500 adults
and children tried our snowshoes
this winter. The snowshoe
program is a fine way to enjoy
the landscape in winter.
Katheryn Viens,
the 2010 MassHumanities
Scholar-in- Residence
at Gore Place,
has been asked to
present a paper at
the 2013 Dublin Seminar
on her Gore Place research.
Congratulations,
Kate! |top|
DOWN
ON THE FARM
- The farm
stand was open
all winter with eggs, lamb
and pork for sale. The lamb
is gone, but pork and bacon
are still available and,
of course, eggs daily. To
arrange for your order,
email farmer@goreplace.org.
Additional row
crops will be
grown this year in the east
fields with a focus on growing
for the farm
stand.
- Pigs were such a popular
addition to the
farm that we will have
more this year. We are
interested in adding
Tamworth pigs as they
are appropriate to the
early 19th century.
- There is a
new interactive kiosk
at the farm with an
information panel and
touchable features.
This was supported in
part by Waltham and
Watertown Local Cultural
Councils. The mobile
chicken coop has a new
protective hawk netting
to keep our
flock happy. This was
provided by a generous
contribution
from Barbara Moore,
a member of the Grounds
Committee and
former Board member.
- Our farmer,
Scott Clarke,
will welcome a
Border collie pup
this spring to the farm.
Scott will be busy training
this new addition
to herd sheep and chase
rabbits and geese!
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SPOTLIGHT
ON THE COLLECTION
 This
19th c. three-wheeled
invalid chair was often referred
to as a “Bath Chair” because
it is thought to
have originated in
Bath, England. It was very
popular conveyance for residents
and visitors in English town
and country. Notice that the
suspension runs from front
to back. The manufacturer
of this chair, Leveson & Sons,
claims that the user
will have “perfect rest
and freedom from
vibration”.
We doubt that it
would have been comfortable
on bumpy surfaces.
When the Gores were in Bath,
Christopher probably didn’t
need to use such a chair.
It wasn’t
until his return
to Waltham in 1804
that he began to feel the
pain of arthritis that would
afflict him in later life.
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GRANTS
- Thanks
to a generous contribution
from Gore Place
member and former Board
member Fred Ballou, the
clocks at Gore Place are
being repaired
so that they can
contribute their own sound
to our sense of place in
the mansion. The work is
being done by Michael Poisson
of M.G.P., Inc. of Wayland
MA.
- City of Waltham
Community Preservation
Act Fund - $250,000
for the restoration
of the 1793 Gore
carriage house.
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Gore
Place Society Administration
Officers - President,
James F. Hunnewell,
Jr.; Vice President,
Pamela Swain; Vice
President, Linda Wiseman;
Secretary, James Crissman;
Treasurer, William Diercks;
Assistant Treasurer,
Robert Sadler; At Large, Deborah
Gates.
Governors
Richard
Cheek, Helen Doggett-Plante,
Catherine Ferrera,
Susan Kearney,
Thomas Kohler, William
Lynch, Flip Mason,
Johanna McBrien, Chip O’Hare,
Elizabeth Powell,
Belinda Rathbone,
Mark L. Schmid,
George Tall, Grace
Thaler, Electa
Tritsch; Honorary
Governor for Life, Charlotte
Patten.
Staff
Executive
Director, Susan
Robertson; Director
of Landscape and Farm Operations,
Scott Clarke;
Collections Manager, Lana
Lewis; Director of Public
Programs, Thom Roach; Membership
and Annual Fund Coordinator,
Catie Camp; Education
Specialists, Tamar
Agulian and Susan
Katz; Rentals Manager,
Michelle Caruso;
Volunteer Coordinator,
Brian Smith;
Grounds Assistant, Chris
Reid; Guides,Stefanie Aucoin.
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